


If I Just Breathe

by Hinn_Raven



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Chorus is Space Australia, Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Inspired by Art, M/M, Mouth-to-Mouth, Post-Season/Series 12, This Planet Will Kill You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 12:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15194855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: While investigating a temple in the middle of a frozen lake, Wash and Tucker have a close call.





	If I Just Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so the other day I saw papanorth draw [THIS AMAZING FANART](http://papanorth.tumblr.com/post/175524045126/oxygen) and I immediately went... "Okay but what are they DOING THERE." So uh, I wrote it. WHOOPS. HAVE SOME TUCKINGTON DROWNING FIC.

Chorus is a planet of wild extremes; hot, humid jungles full of poisonous plants, craggy mountain ranges, deep oceans full of strange creatures, and, Wash and Tucker’s latest stop, an arctic ice shelf that happens to be the home of a strange alien temple that the two of them are investigating.

It’s been only two weeks since Tucker was released from the hospital; two weeks since Wash’s world was turned upside down by revelations about mercenaries and fake civil wars, and the sinking, horrific sight of Tucker being stabbed before his very eyes, unable to do anything about it.

The two of them race across the barren arctic scene on a mongoose, with Tucker driving and Wash’s arms around his chest. They had tried to requisition two mongooses, but equipment shortages were severe, and Kimball and Doyle, when they’d been presented with the request, had not had time for Wash and Tucker’s mentions of potential awkwardness emerging from the situation. The two of them had taken a break from their own bickering to tell Wash to suck it up and deal with his crush like a man, even if they hadn’t phrased it quite that way.

Not that Wash had a crush.

That would be ridiculous. Tucker was his friend. His irritating, ridiculous, sex-obsessed, utterly gorgeous, stubborn, friend.

Who he’d nearly seen die just a few days ago.

It took a conscious effort not to tighten his grip on Tucker at that thought.

There was something utterly bleak about this part of Chorus. There were no trees for miles, and no other identifiable features, only the towering monolith of silver stone that was the alien temple for this part of Chorus.

It wasn’t always frozen, according to Dr. Grey. “Arctic,” wasn’t quite the right word. But Chrous’s seasons were strange (and bolstered by alien technology), and lasted much longer than the ones back on Earth, so this lake had been frozen for the past five years.

Wash had added “abnormally long seasons” to his list of “reasons why Chorus is a horrible place that we should leave as soon as humanly possible.”

Tucker pulled over a mile away from the temple. Apparently the Temple shorted out vehicles that got too close to it—which was why they were also relatively sure that the mercenaries wouldn’t be present here. It was low-priority, but Kimball and Doyle hoped that it might be able to help them figure out how to turn off the temple that was pulling ships down, or at least allow them to disable the mercenaries’ transportation.

“Okay, we’re here, you can stop feeling up my abs,” Tucker says, and Wash practically throws himself off the mongoose to avoid dealing with those implications.

Next time, he’ll drive.

Then, he realizes that it means that Tucker will be feeling _him_ up for the entirety of their return trip, and he starts to rapidly reconsider his life and his choices.

Wash pulls himself out of his thoughts and stops to get the equipment off the mongoose while Tucker goes on ahead—a few missions like this have taught Wash that the temple’s defenses are less likely to be activated if he gives Tucker a little space for the initial approach.

Dr. Grey and Sarge have taken a bit too much glee, in Wash’s humble opinion, in putting together the device he’s holding in his hands. It’s large and square and looks like it might fall apart at any given moment, but it’s doing a good job so far at identifying the purposes of the temples.

Any one of these temples, Doyle and Kimball are keen to remind them, might be the key to either getting off this planet or defeating Felix and Locus.

If you had asked Wash just a month ago, he’d probably have said that he’d take the free ride off the planet.

But after seeing Tucker go down like that…

He would be lying if he said that he didn’t want a little payback for it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tucker’s sword come to light, waving it wildly in the air in his normal method of trying to let the temple know he’s a friendly, because Tucker, despite being an alien ambassador and having an _alien son_ , still doesn’t know enough Sanghelli to say “we come in peace, please don’t shred us to bits with your high tech lasers.”

There’s a soft red glow, emerging from the temple, as if acknowledging him, and Wash shoulders the scanner and starts to follow.

And that’s when it happens.

Tucker takes another step forward, and suddenly, a loud and horrifying _crack_ fills the air.

Wash spins around, drawing his gun, convinced that someone just fired a weapon. “Tucker! Get down!”

“Uh…”

“Tucker!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Wash,” Tucker says.

Wash spins to face him, half afraid that he’s going to find Felix holding a knife to Tucker’s throat.

But Tucker is just standing there, staring at the ground beneath his feet.

“… Tucker?”

“I think it’s almost spring, Wash,” Tucker says, and there’s something borderline hysterical to his voice.

“What the hell are you talking about, Tucker?”

“I don’t think this ice is thick enough.”

There’s another cracking noise, and this time Wash sees it.

_Oh shit._

“Tucker,” Wash says, reaching out—pointless, he knows, he’s too far away to reach Tucker. He can see the cracks in the ice—ice that should be solid, ice that should _not_ be fracturing slowly, filling the world with an awful creaking noise—spreading out further and further from Tucker, but also increasing around his feet, so close to each other that there’s barely a centimeter not marred by the jagged lines. “Tucker, don’t move, okay, I’m going to get you out of there—”

“I’m in armor, Wash,” Tucker’s trying to be brave, but there’s a tremor in his voice that Wash doesn’t like. “It’ll be fine.”

He’s right, Wash knows. Their armor is meant to survive the vacuum of space. He’s jumped out of space ships and flown through the vacuum in armor.

But he doesn’t want this to happen.

“It’ll be fine,” Tucker says, one last time, before the ice gives way entirely and he plunges beneath the surface of the water.

For a moment, Wash can’t breathe.

Then Tucker’s voice comes through the radio.

“You see? Told you I’d be fine.”

Wash sags against the mongoose, closing his eyes for a moment. “Okay, just stay put, okay? I’ll get a rope down, and then use the mongoose to tow you out—”

“Uh, yeah, I’m still sinking. This lake is _deep_ , Wash.”

Wash clenches his fists. “Just stay calm! I’ll get you out.”

There was a pause. “Hey, uh, Wash?”

“Yeah Tucker?”

“So… on a scale of zero to ten, with like, zero being “everything’s absolutely great, look at all these hot babes who are totally into me,” and ten being “we’re fucked and not in the fun way…” how bad is a seal breech?”

Wash freezes.

“That’s impossible! The armor’s supposed to be—”

“Uh, Kimball said something about the water in this region being super acidic or something? I wasn’t really paying attention, I think this entire planet is a death trap honestly— _fuck_!”

Wash can feel his heart in his throat, and he grabs the tow rope without thinking. “What?”

“Wash?” Tucker’s voice is quiet. He’s not even trying to be funny or sexual about it, and that, more than anything, is what tells Wash that there’s trouble. “There’s a crack in my helmet.”

Their armor does not come with unlimited oxygen. It filters potentially toxic atmospheres, but it is not designed for water rebreathing. For space jumps and the like, you’re supposed to take precautions, otherwise you only have a limited supply.

And even that only lasts as long as the seal remains intact.

Tucker’s seal is broken.

Wash throws open the first aid kit and finds the portable oxygen mask that comes standard, barely remembering to press the SOS button to alert everyone back on base that they’re in trouble, and then, holding the tow rope and not stopping to think about what a colossally awful idea this is, he jumps into the water right after Tucker.

The water is cold and green in Wash’s vision, but at least it’s clear. He can see Tucker, not quiet at the bottom yet, arms akimbo as he tries to fight it, swimming up. Bubbles—Tucker’s _air_ —stream out up from him, as the armor rapidly loses armor.

Wash was a good swimmer when he was a child. He’d go to the pool with his sisters and race them. One of them would race him to the bottom, and he’d win every time, because she’d flail her way down, while Wash had kept his body straight as he possibly could.

He just has to hope it’s enough here.

“Tucker,” he says, hoping to god that his voice sounds steadier than he feels. “I need you to take off your helmet.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Tucker says, and his voice is already sounding strained, and Wash needs to move _faster_ , he needs—

“ _Yes_!”

He sees Tucker move, and then sees a helmet fall to the side, and he swallows, because if he’s miscalculated, he might have just killed Tucker—

A warning emerges on his HUD, letting him know that, yeah, he’s got a seal breech as well, and trying to tell him things like his oxygen levels (not great) and the temperature of the water (also not great) and how close he is to Tucker (better).

Wash reaches, and reaches, and…

 _There_!

His hand grabs Tucker’s, but there’s no response. Nothing over the radio, no reassuring squeeze, not even a nod of his head.

Tucker’s eyes are closed.

For a moment—a costly, horrifying moment—Wash is paralyzed with fear.

Panicking, Wash pulls himself around in front of Tucker, and grabs the oxygen mask and presses it against Tucker’s face with one hand, pulling Tucker close with the other, which is still gripping a hold of the tow rope.

They hang in the water for a moment, while Wash waits to see if Tucker will move—he can’t see the rise and fall of his chest, he can’t feel his heart beating through the layers of armor, he doesn’t _know_ if Tucker is still alive or not, he just has to believe it, because Tucker can’t be dead, he _can’t_.

Wash’s own lungs are burning, and he dares to let go of the mask for a moment to release his own helmet—god, Carolina is going to give him hell for that later—so he can grab a quick breath of air for himself.

Tucker shifts slightly, his hand coming to rest against Wash’s leg, and Wash can already feel himself going into shock from the temperature of the water. That’s what’s happened to Tucker—that, and oxygen deprivation. Hypothermia

But he can get through this.

He needs to.

For both of them.

Wash grabs the switch at the bottom of the tow rope and presses the button, ordering the mongoose to pull them up.

The water is like needles against his skin, even with most of his body protected by the armor. But the seal of his armor is broken and water is getting through the skintight Kevlar, numbing his fingers, toes, and ears, and making it harder and harder to hold his breath, but he refuses to take the mask off Tucker again, because Tucker is _unconscious_ , he needs it far more than Wash ever could—

If Wash gets out of here, he’s going to make Sarge and Grey improve the tow on the mongoose, because this is taking far too long. Tucker might have water in his lungs, Wash can’t tell if he’s breathing, his own lungs feel like they might burst, and Wash’s grip on the rope is slipping, and his grip on Tucker is also fragile, and losing ahold of either would be disastrous.

Tucker’s eyes flicker open for a moment, and Wash gets a glimpse of warm, rich brown, through the colors of the water, before his ridiculously long-lashed eyelids close again.

They burst out of the water suddenly, and Wash gasps, greedily inhaling air as the two of them are dragged across the ice, until they stop just a few inches away from the warthog. Wash is lying on top of Tucker, dripping wet, just a few inches away from the gaping hole in the ice.  He’s dizzy for a moment, but Tucker isn’t moving beneath him, so he forces himself to get up, ripping the oxygen mask off Tucker.

He scrambles back through his memories, all the way back to those days in the pool with his sisters, and the awful lifeguard training his mother had made him go through before she’d let them go alone, because he was the _oldest_ and he had to be _responsible_ for the others.

Wash tilts Tucker’s head to the side, forcing his mouth open slightly to allow the water to escape. _God_ , it’s been so long since he’s had to do this, he hopes he’s remembering it correctly—he straightens Tucker’s head again and pinches his nose and then presses his lips against Tucker’s.

The movies always make this look _romantic_ somehow, but it’s not romantic to Wash, it’s full of panic and desperation as he tries to force Tucker to _breathe_ , _breathe damnit Tucker, don’t you dare—_

A heartbeat.

But he’s still not breathing.

Wash resumes breathing for Tucker, his own heart racing as he hopes, against hope, that this will work, that he hasn’t ruined everything, that he’s managed to save him this time, he couldn’t save him from Felix, but he maybe could this time—

Tucker coughs, and Wash falls back onto the heels of his hands, eyes damp with thankful tears as he watches Tucker scramble up and roll over just in time to throw up.

It’s the most beautiful sight that Wash has ever seen.

“I—hate—this fucking planet,” Tucker gasps.

Wash can’t help but laugh, and it’s then that he realizes they’re both shivering.

“Grey is going to kill us,” he mutters.

“Hey, she has to save us first,” Tucker says.

Wash can’t help but laugh at that.

“… so are we going to cuddle for warmth or what?”

“Do you have to phrase it like that?”

“Hey, you were the one kissing me,” Tucker says, his voice raspy but amused.

“It was mouth to mouth!”

“I’m pretty sure oxygen masks are better than your lips,” Tucker snickers, and Wash goes crimson, but he rolls over to get closer to Tucker. They should probably get out of the armor or—or something, he knows, but the cold has sunken into his bones, and he doesn’t have the energy to do anything more than press his face against Tucker’s armored back and drape his arm around his chest, in a parody of the position they’d been on in the mongoose earlier.

He sent off the SOS.

They’ll be fine.

That’s how Carolina finds them, two minutes later—soaking wet, helmetless, and cuddling.

Wash is too happy to be alive to even notice. 


End file.
